Discovery of 2,300-Year-Old Ancient Crops Challenges Modern Views on African Farming

Recent findings from Kenya’s Kakapel Rockshelter highlight the origins and development of ancient farming in East Africa, detailing the introduction of crops like cowpea and challenging past perceptions of African agriculture.

A trove of ancient plant remains unearthed in Kenya sheds light on the history of crop farming in equatorial eastern Africa. This region has been considered significant for early agricultural development, yet there has been little physical evidence of ancient crops found there until now.

In a new study recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, archaeologists from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Pittsburgh, and their colleagues report the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from interior east Africa.

Up until now, scientists have had virtually no success in gathering ancient plant remains from east Africa and, as a result, have had little idea where and how early plant farming got its start in the large and diverse area comprising Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.